Eastern Front: Soviet Storm v1.96b (Link Fixed)

[BiteNibbleChomp]

Wow! Great graphics.

Agreed, like the trap nets (naval barbed wire - was that the inspiration?)

- BNC

[Akkula]

Thanks for the comments friends!
I thought of the naval nets idea after read some material regarding the naval war between the URSS and the Germans. Your WWI barbed wire encouraged me of course .

[BiteNibbleChomp]

Thanks for the comments friends!
I thought of the naval nets idea after read some material regarding the naval war between the URSS and the Germans. Your WWI barbed wire encouraged me of course .

Not surprising

- BNC

[nikivdd]

In the first mission i need to move 8 units from the pocket - I assume 16th army units??? - to the hexes marked with A.
At first I'm actually puzzled how i am going to achieve this. Except for the tanks, the remaining 16th army units have no transports. On second thought i should move the infantry eastward from turn 1, if i want those units to reach A hexes within the given number of turns.

The player army core has some great units and it doesn't take long before they can attack the enemy. But i do miss one unit here, a bridge engineer. Now i am forced to move all my units over that single bridge for both the attacking force and the retreating 16th army. So a bridge engineer for a case of wodka would be very welcome

Additionally 5 stars for the briefings, including the animated battle map; great idea.

[nikivdd]

A little situation report here, showing some - probably unwanted - effects (exploits).

In the screenshot, most of my forces are withdrawing after the order came from Stavka and Raseiniai cancelled as a primary objective. Before this order came i managed to capture the airfield near Raseiniai and a town called Unikiai. And after the order came, the Germans destroyed two T-26S.

Firstly, after i captured the only German airfield, the Luftwaffe goes on strike or simply put, the planes won't move anymore. Easily solved by placing another airfield in the upper left corner. But thank you anyway, my planes are having a very good time now.
Secondly, i captured that insignificant town Unikiai, i can now deploy units in the enemy's rear as you can see in the screenshot. I'm pretty sure this was not intended when you created this scenario. Easily solved by placing a defender is such a towns.

And btw, except for the price, the BT-7 and BT-7A have exactly the same stats.

[Akkula]

In the first mission i need to move 8 units from the pocket - I assume 16th army units??? - to the hexes marked with A.
At first I'm actually puzzled how i am going to achieve this. Except for the tanks, the remaining 16th army units have no transports. On second thought i should move the infantry eastward from turn 1, if i want those units to reach A hexes within the given number of turns.

The player army core has some great units and it doesn't take long before they can attack the enemy. But i do miss one unit here, a bridge engineer. Now i am forced to move all my units over that single bridge for both the attacking force and the retreating 16th army. So a bridge engineer for a case of wodka would be very welcome

Additionally 5 stars for the briefings, including the animated battle map; great idea.

Mhhh, the lack of bridge engineer is on purpose. One the most dramatic moments of the Battle of Raseiniai was in fact, that single bridge, there a single KV-2 hold off the German crossing for a day. So that is way I didn´t put any bridge unit there, neither the Germans nor the Soviets deployed any bridge in that moment, but if its almost impossible to get the DV I will put one (at least aux)

A little situation report here, showing some - probably unwanted - effects (exploits).

In the screenshot, most of my forces are withdrawing after the order came from Stavka and Raseiniai cancelled as a primary objective. Before this order came i managed to capture the airfield near Raseiniai and a town called Unikiai. And after the order came, the Germans destroyed two T-26S.

Firstly, after i captured the only German airfield, the Luftwaffe goes on strike or simply put, the planes won't move anymore. Easily solved by placing another airfield in the upper left corner. But thank you anyway, my planes are having a very good time now.
Secondly, i captured that insignificant town Unikiai, i can now deploy units in the enemy's rear as you can see in the screenshot. I'm pretty sure this was not intended when you created this scenario. Easily solved by placing a defender is such a towns.

And btw, except for the price, the BT-7 and BT-7A have exactly the same stats.

Good catch regarding the airport!. I never though enyone could get that far . Indeed I will need to add on for backup for the German forces
Same for your exploits in the villages in the rear, I will add some infantry defenders.
Regarding the BT-7A, maybe I could change its stats a little bit, but its main characteristics is to use the artillery or tank mode depending the situation. I will dig more about that variant and see what changes can I made.

Thanks for all your comments and findings nikivdd!, I greatly appreciate it, keep it up!.
Best regards.

[nikivdd]

I tried to encircle Baseiniai. Two T-26s from the north, two KV-1s from the south. A KV-1 took the airfield and both shot the German artillery to bits. The T-26s were destroyed when the Germans renewed their offensive. Infantry and artillery were placed in the center. I felt that something was bound to happen when i discovered the German panzer laying in wait. The single bridge crossing does have the advantage for defensive purposes; i managed to let several German units surrender on that bridge; which is good for my prestige.
The core AA unit in the southeast of the map, i gave it a transport, so i could use it on the offensive as well. Since they are switchable, they are doing reasonably well against armour. What i didn't know, is that the BT-7A is a switchable unit which explains its cost to be higher than the BT-7. Ingame i also upgraded the I-16 to a MiG.
The campaign kicked off pretty well, despite the loss of two tanks - i expected far worse. I got the DV at the end of turn 20. BTW, it is probably a good idea to warn players that this mission only ends after the final turn, or at the "impossible" outcome when the player manages to destroy all German units.

[nikivdd]

Hanko is a well done scripted scenario. Loved the naval activity and the Finish units gaining ground on the peninsula with every turn. In the end the Fins were no match for the tanks and i could pick off quite a number of Finish units while they were moving forward in their transport; the AI was somehow disregarding its flanks. The idea of reinforcements is always welcome but i think you overdone it a bit with the taskforces popping up to capture Russaro and Ladugarsviken; i'm pretty sure the job could be done with half their number. The appearance of Finish transports and escorts took me by complete surprise and i feared that i might lose Klovaskar; with a bit of help of the Pe-2, newly purchased Pe-8 and as many naval units i could muster, i barely managed to hold on to this objective. This is the second mission i finish with a DV, i consider myself very lucky . This campaign shows great promise
Perhaps an idea for the e-file, in analogy to what Augustinmalar did with his Slovak campaign, to rename the Soviet units with their actual Soviet name; it could add to the comrad atmosphere of the campaign.

[Akkula]

Hanko is a well done scripted scenario. Loved the naval activity and the Finish units gaining ground on the peninsula with every turn. In the end the Fins were no match for the tanks and i could pick off quite a number of Finish units while they were moving forward in their transport; the AI was somehow disregarding its flanks. The idea of reinforcements is always welcome but i think you overdone it a bit with the taskforces popping up to capture Russaro and Ladugarsviken; i'm pretty sure the job could be done with half their number. The appearance of Finish transports and escorts took me by complete surprise and i feared that i might lose Klovaskar; with a bit of help of the Pe-2, newly purchased Pe-8 and as many naval units i could muster, i barely managed to hold on to this objective. This is the second mission i finish with a DV, i consider myself very lucky . This campaign shows great promise
Perhaps an idea for the e-file, in analogy to what Augustinmalar did with his Slovak campaign, to rename the Soviet units with their actual Soviet name; it could add to the comrad atmosphere of the campaign.

Nice job nikivdd!, it seems you are a worthy Soviet Commander after all, keep it up with your excellent performance . Please keep posting your reports from your progress, I like them
I am glad you are enjoying the campaign, I put all my efforts do try to design it with some quality for this great community
Also, I like your idea to put the real Russian names to the units, I will try to do it, sounds promising.

Regarding my "expansion" for Soviet Storm I am entering in dangerous waters, here my first attempt to create a deployable defensive position (useful for the first part of the war at least):


I am trying to improve but I am ran out of ideas, I hope someone can help me.......

EDIT: This should be the unit before the permanent deployment. I used some of the phcas icons to make it, what do you think?:

[BiteNibbleChomp]

Hanko is a well done scripted scenario. Loved the naval activity and the Finish units gaining ground on the peninsula with every turn. In the end the Fins were no match for the tanks and i could pick off quite a number of Finish units while they were moving forward in their transport; the AI was somehow disregarding its flanks. The idea of reinforcements is always welcome but i think you overdone it a bit with the taskforces popping up to capture Russaro and Ladugarsviken; i'm pretty sure the job could be done with half their number. The appearance of Finish transports and escorts took me by complete surprise and i feared that i might lose Klovaskar; with a bit of help of the Pe-2, newly purchased Pe-8 and as many naval units i could muster, i barely managed to hold on to this objective. This is the second mission i finish with a DV, i consider myself very lucky . This campaign shows great promise
Perhaps an idea for the e-file, in analogy to what Augustinmalar did with his Slovak campaign, to rename the Soviet units with their actual Soviet name; it could add to the comrad atmosphere of the campaign.

Nice job nikivdd!, it seems you are a worthy Soviet Commander after all, keep it up with your excellent performance . Please keep posting your reports from your progress, I like them
I am glad you are enjoying the campaign, I put all my efforts do try to design it with some quality for this great community
Also, I like your idea to put the real Russian names to the units, I will try to do it, sounds promising.

Regarding my "expansion" for Soviet Storm I am entering in dangerous waters, here my first attempt to create a deployable defensive position (useful for the first part of the war at least):


I am trying to improve but I am ran out of ideas, I hope someone can help me.......

EDIT: This should be the unit before the permanent deployment. I used some of the phcas icons to make it, what do you think?:

Well maybe keep the Russian names as an optional download that is separate from the main game. Otherwise I will probably get confused (It took me just short of 2 years to fully work out the German ones!)

As for the deployable defensive position, look at McGuba's Strongpoint Construction Kits that I am basing the Roman towns off. And maybe you could use the barbed wire unit as well?

<note. Barbed Wire is technically a reskin of the regular minefield unit - minesweepers/engineers clear it all at once>

And maybe partisans could occasionally build defenseless observation towers with sight of ~4 so that you can see far into the German lines? Just a thought

- BNC

[BiteNibbleChomp]

I also noticed you haven't announced your mod on the sticky so that VPaulus can add it to the official list.

viewtopic.php?f=147&t=39056

Use this link.

- BNC

[BiteNibbleChomp]

Also I can't seem to make the dropbox download for massi's mod work. Any sendspace/mediafire links around that I could use?

- BNC

[Akkula]

I took the liberty to upload the Massi Mod to mediafire, just for you

http://www.mediafire.com/download/fhpta ... +massi.zip

Regarding the McGuba's Strongpoint Construction Kits, where can I find it?. I am still working to improve that unit, any material would help.
By the way, I like your idea to add more partisan related units, sounds great. It seems this scenario is going to take more than I expected!

[BiteNibbleChomp]

Regarding the McGuba's Strongpoint Construction Kits, where can I find it?. I am still working to improve that unit, any material would help.
By the way, I like your idea to add more partisan related units, sounds great. It seems this scenario is going to take more than I expected!

In battlefield europe you can use the all eqp cheat to find a Strongpoint Construction Kit unit - AFAIK it is like a truck that can be switched to a strongpoint. A similar idea is in WWI with the gas shells. So try to find one of those in the equipment file and copy it over, then make the modifications you deem necessary .

And thanks for the massi mod link - I'll probably write you up an AAR at some point to repay you for all the Roman icons!

- BNC

[BiteNibbleChomp]

OK, So far I have gotten through six turns of scenario 1.

You made me lose most of the pocket really quickly though

Other than that I have made good progress though, punching all the way to his defensive line at the large city. One MG from the pocket is coming to help there, otherwise it is just my core for that city. 8 or 9 units managed to be saved from the pocket, and are escaping across the river now.

1-1.JPG (166.03 KiB) Viewed 3718 times

1-2.JPG (169.39 KiB) Viewed 3718 times

I also bought a T-35. How long will this be possible for? Because they have more ammo than a KV2 so I consider them better value.

Also, great finds with the music - normally I edit mods that change the music back to the original stuff, but with this one I'm not going to!

- BNC

[Akkula]

Wow, I am glad that you are using the T-35 beast!
I expect to add some more "catchy" russian music in the next big release . But the next one (maybe this weekend) will focus on some little fixes from community feedback.

Just like I said to nikivdd, I am eager to read your reports from the front too!

[BiteNibbleChomp]

Turn 11: 'Very funny' was my first thought when you gave me the message. I captured the airfield though, so no more Stukas. Ileft a KV-1 there to be sure.

1-3.JPG (170.42 KiB) Viewed 3715 times

Truly was wondering how I would get more than 6 16th Army units to 'A' by now!

Turn 14: Got a truck for a 16th Army unit.

Turn 16: Gave up the bridge. My T-35 (now my command vehicle!) was ordered to defend in the north.

Turn 20: My 8th 16.Army unit got to the A region.

Overall: Got a DV, but only because I bought a truck, and then only barely. Could do with 2-3 more turns though! Also, unlike Inferno, this mod has the scale that I work best with!

1-4.JPG (108.21 KiB) Viewed 3715 times

- BNC

[Akkula]

I hope not to disappoint you bite.... but some maps are quite big........

[BiteNibbleChomp]

Well if the campaign is structured well enough then I probably won't notice as much

- BNC

[BiteNibbleChomp]

Also, I saved a replay. Would you like these to be uploaded as well?

- BNC